That is one of the big benefits, I think. I'll write up a summary of the house rules I use for forum play once I have a moment. VonDoom, you okay with using FATE? I admit, I think given what I have in mind it might be a little bit better of a fit than DRYH, as much as I love that system.

As for more than two players, well, I don't want to overload this, especially as I have had very much mixed success with group games in the past — as I'm sure everyone has — who all exactly is interested now that we at least tentatively have an idea it'll be in FATE?

I have been hoping for an excuse to actually look at FATE for ages. So yeah, I'm perfectly fine with that.

Briefly google-searching into FATE, it looks like Fate Core and Fate Accelerated are the most recent versions, right?

Yeah, those are the two current versions, both of which are nicely available free in full in pdf form. Both are usable here, too, although in either case some tweaks would be necessary. Basically it's just the level of detail you want on your characters, more than the level of simplicity of the mechanics, in all honesty.

Hmm. I'm all for level of detail and just read a bit into the Fate Core book.

I really like what I'm seeing so far and the Aspect system sounds very interesting indeed -- for Marissa, I figure something like 'Apprentice of Mebbeth, a herbalist witch wise woman with a mysterious agenda' as High Concept and 'Struggles to temper her strong curiosity, intrigued by knowledge and power' as Trouble would sound appropriate to put forward when we make character sheets?

Reading onwards, the third Aspect would be something Marissa did on her own, her very first adventure-y thing to do, then Shrroth and I essentially switch these adventures and add our own character into the others' as a support role to figure out the fourth. Then the same switch again with a potential third player character, or some alternate means for the fifth aspect.

I haven't looked too closely at skills and stunts yet, but they look easy enough to grasp at a glance.

It's specifically a CoC-based request, with the linked threads going into greater detail on what sort of transformations are enjoyed and which we'd rather avoid, so that would be the general assumption, yes.